Seventy-five years after the Partition, Sikhs in Pakistan will finally receive recognition and representation; they recently received a column on the census form. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has stated that Sikhism will be included in the census survey for the first time as a separate religion.
Sikhism was included under other religions, like Christianity and Hinduism. They were underrepresented in the government as a result of inaccurate population estimations.
This move, according to sources, is the result of a five-year legal dispute that was initiated by five Sikhs who submitted a petition to the Peshawar High Court in March 2017. Despite the court’s decision being in their favor, nothing was done to abide by it. A separate column for Sikhs was required by Pakistan’s Supreme Court to be included in the population census forms that were published in Urdu a year later.
He praised the five Sikhs from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa whose work had helped the community gain respect. He explained that the action will assist Pakistani Sikhs in obtaining fundamental rights and institutional representation.
Inconsistencies in the census
Punjab is the primary residence of Pakistan’s Sikh people. In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Peshawar is home to a modest population.
Following the 2017 census, minorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and Sindh reportedly complained that their numbers had been undercounted.
PSGPC (Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee), among other Sikh organizations, voiced opposition to the census forms’ exclusion. Habibullah Khan, a representative for the census process, acknowledged that it was a mistake on the side of the census authorities as the debate continued, according to Dawn.
This occurred despite the Peshawar High Court ordering the provincial statistics agency to include the Sikh community on the national census form.
The Council of Common Interests conducted many meetings to ratify the 2017 census but was unable to come to an agreement. The Council of Common Interests is a constitutional body that resolves disputes about the division of power between the federal government and the provinces.
The administrations of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which are partners of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), eventually decided to end their demonstrations. The Pakistan People’s Party government in Sindh, however, countered that the Council of Common Interests decision would lead to an unfair distribution of federal funding.
The 2017 census did not provide information on minorities including Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and others in a population of 20.77 crores. The only official statistics currently available are from the 1998 census, which shows that the minority group made up 3.72 percent of Pakistan’s population. The official website states that the Sikh community was not given its own data in the 1998 census either.
News Mania Desk
